168 | 4 Tips to Stop Overspending

Overspending is a common concern for the lawyers I speak with. Getting on top of overspending is key to managing your money better and ultimately achieving your financial goals.

In this episode, let’s talk about 4 tips to help you stop overspending.

• • overspending is one of the top financial concerns for lawyers
  • why you need to plan how much you want to spend
  • idealistic vs. realistic plans
  • the importance of checking in with your plan
  • giving yourself grace

You’re listening to Wealthyesque. We are a community of lawyers who believe that true wealth is having control of our time. I’m Rho Thomas, and as a busy wife, mom, and former Biglaw associate, I know all too well the tension between the culture of the legal profession and pretty much everything else you want to do in life. That’s why each week, I’m bringing you the information and tools you need to improve your money mindset and manage your money to create true wealth. Because ultimately, it’s not about the money. It’s about the freedom and flexibility the money affords.

Hey friend. Welcome back to the show. I hope you’re doing well and having an amazing day so far. Today we are talking about overspending and specifically I am going to give you some tips to help you stop overspending if you find yourself in this place. I talk to a lot of lawyers and one of the top concerns that lawyers talk about is overspending. They think they’re spending too much money. They say things like I need to get my spending under control, all of that kind of stuff. So this episode is going to help you with not overspending and getting that spending under control. So the first tip I have for you, is to make a plan for how much you want to spend. Because although lawyers tell me that they’re spending too much and they gotta get their spending under control, often they don’t know how much they’re spending they have not decided how much they wanted to spend. And you can’t truly say that you’re overspending if you’ve never decided how much you wanted to spend in the first place. The amount that you want to spend is gonna be your target. It’s gonna be your base. And so if you’re spending beyond that, now we can say that you’re overspending because we’ve got an objective measure, but if you have not decided how much you wanted to spend in the first place, you have no idea how much overspending is your brain is often going to default to telling you that you’re spending too much regardless of how much you spend. So the very first tip is to make a plan for how much you want to spend. And this is also called your budget. This is something that we talk about a lot. It’s intentionally deciding at the beginning of the month, or the beginning of the pay period, how much you want to spend in each category. When you do that you’re making this plan for how you want to use your money. And then you can see if I’m spending over this category, or if I’m spending over the amount that I made, then I have overspent so make a plan for how much you want to spend in the first place. The second tip I have is to make your plan realistic. So when you’re creating that budget, make sure that it’s realistic for you. What often happens is people make these idealized budgets. They’re like, Oh, I should be able to spend this little bitty amount of money and don’t take into consideration how much they have typically spent, how much they need to spend for their lifestyle for their family for their household. And that is just a recipe for failure. If you don’t make your plan realistic for yourself, you’re setting yourself up to overspend. The idealized version of what you think you should be spending is not helpful for you. It’s not something that you are going to be able to stick to because it’s not actually reflective of what you’re spending. So let’s make the plan realistic for you for your lifestyle for the things that are important to you. Let’s make sure that you are accounting for those things and making the plan because again, if you don’t if it’s this version that you think you should be spending versus what’s actually realistic for you to be spending, you’re gonna find yourself overspending anyway. The next tip is to check in with your plan as you spend. It’s very common for lawyers to make budgets and then set it to the side and never think about it again. And when you do that, then you can’t stick to the plan because you have no idea what the plan is. So you want to check in with your plan throughout the month throughout the time that you’re spending. How much did I say I wanted to spend on x? How much have I spent on X so far, because when you can see what your actual spending looks like against your plan, you can pivot if necessary, you can make those tweaks to keep yourself within the bounds of the plan that you set. But if you never look at the plan, you have no idea what’s going on and you will inevitably overspend because you don’t know how much you wanted to spend in the first place. So let’s make sure that you keep that plan in mind as you’re going throughout your spending. Check in with it. Make sure that you see where you are in the month. I’ve actually spent X amount I wanted to spend this where am I in relation to that checking in with that plan will help you to stay on track with this so that you can keep that spending in check. And now the final tip is a little bit less tactical, but it’s one that I think is very important, especially for lawyers because we have this tendency to be really hard on ourselves. So the final tip is don’t beat yourself up. Overspending is not an inherently bad thing. It’s something that happens from time to time. I still overspend sometimes, and I don’t think it’s anything to be ashamed of. I talk all the time about how money is just data for us. We don’t have to make the money need anything good or bad about us as people. So when you are managing your money if you find yourself overspending or you find yourself doing something outside of your plan, that’s just information for you to use to change what you’re doing if you don’t like the outcome of it. If I am planning to spend this amount, I find that I’m already halfway through that amount and only a week into the month, then I know that I can make some adjustments there. But I don’t have to beat myself up about that. It’s not something that makes me a bad person because I’m not on track with my plan. It’s just I need to make some changes to what I’m doing if I still want to hit this goal of spending this amount, but beating ourselves up is never going to be useful. It only makes us feel bad. It doesn’t change the reality of the situation. And so I want you to give yourself grace, show yourself some compassion, especially if you are new to managing your money in a more intentional way. It takes time to get into your groove and like I said, even if you’ve been doing it for a while, you’ll still find yourself overspending sometimes just like I do that is perfectly fine. You don’t have to then layer on shame and judgment and guilt and all of that. That just makes it feel bad. So give yourself some grace. Don’t beat yourself up. When you find yourself overspending. Just use whatever is happening as information for you to guide what you do next. So those are my four tips to help you stop overspending. I hope they are helpful for you. And if you want help with implementing these tips or implementing other strategies to manage your money better, join us in my money membership. It’s opening on September 14, and you can get on the waitlist at rho thomas.com/waitlist so you don’t miss it. All right, that is it for this week’s episode. If you have gotten value from the episode, please do me a favor and share it with a friend or two. I am trying to help spread this information throughout the legal profession and I need your help to do it. So if you could let someone else know about this podcast, I would greatly appreciate it. All right. As we close out friends, I pray that you take the information you learn here, apply it in your life and open up to the realization that wealth is available to you. As you do that consistently. Week after week. You’ll continue to take steps to regain control of your time, build wealth and live the life of freedom and choice you deserve. Talk to you later.